Category Archives: IT

January 13, 2022 · 22:07

Bitches be like….

This is the start of an issue I have with a BBC article. The article is not wrong, it is merely short sighted and incorrect, yet the BBC did nothing wrong here. Let’s be clear about that. The shortsightedness comes from the complainers who want to blame Google (YouTube) for everything, but the larger picture is ignored and there my issue starts. The article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59967190) gives us ‘Fact-checkers label YouTube a ‘major conduit of online disinformation’’ I do not disagree here, it is, but when we get to ““livelihoods have been ruined, and far too many people have lost loved ones to disinformation”. It goes on to accuse YouTube of not making enough effort to address the problem, saying that it “is allowing its platform to be weaponised by unscrupulous actors to manipulate and exploit others”.” This is as I personally see it the moment the wheels comes from the wagon. Let’s take a look. 

Example 1
In the Netherlands there is a person named Willem Engel, he was removed from Twitter for violating rules. The man is a Dutch Covid conspiracy theorist. Now the removal seems plain and simple, yet he created close to half a dozen new accounts within 24 hours, some people go through that trouble and this is merely one person. 

This reflects on YouTube as the same thing happens there, but the problem is a lot larger. First how large is this issue? Some sources give us that EVERY MINUTE 500 hours of video are uploaded, that gives us 720,000 hours of video EVERY DAY. This also sets a different premise as YouTube is visited by 122,000,000 people every day, over a billion hours of video are watched every day.

Example 2
We are given ‘too many people have lost loved ones to disinformation’, yet who of them vet the information? We have to take responsibility people, we need to check and check the data and numbers given to us, we all do. And let’s not forget the disinformation does not merely come from conspiracy theorists. There are over 30 hedge funds channels on YouTube, yet we also get (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQEpHwYer-o), which comes from the University of Buffalo. So is one evidence of the other? Hedge funds are too often about deception, to grow they need your money, yet in the end it is still a heads or tails game. Where is the disinformation here? Where is the disinformation when game makers use young kids offering them the game if they can write something nice? How do you think influencers are made? I have seen video’s that do not seem to be deceptive, but until you bought and tested the product, you cannot tell, so how can YouTube? 

Example 3
We get food, we get it all the time, so we are influenced what YouTube video’s offer us and (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHjbujGPX8Q) we get the view of ‘Tricky Ways Fast Food Restaurants Deceive You’ and we get it, people can often not be completely honest when they are in marketing. 

So here is the conundrum, which are misinformation? The first for certain, yet examples two and three? Who decides that? And whilst you are contemplating this, thousands more movies were uploaded. 

So when I see “YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez told the Guardian the company was already investing in ways “to connect people to authoritative content, reduce the spread of borderline misinformation, and remove violative videos”.” I get the steps, but there is another step that these 80 group are ignoring. The need to make the act of spreading disinformation criminal, that is a stage they could take, but in the US there is the First Amendment, the US cannot act in Russia or China and the list of limitations goes on, and even in the US and UK (and many EU nations) we see a lack of acts mainly because the law was never meant for such actions and too many fear a first step towards a totalitarian state. I get it, but to blame YouTube again and again is just folly (but it seemingly give places the limelight they desire). 

So when we we see ‘More context and debunks rather than just deleting videos’ we see the beginning of a dangerous premise towards censorship, also that is not on YouTube is it? Debunking information is YOUR job, it is called vetting information and it has been around since before the Sudan Wars (1885), Julius Caesar dealt with misinformation by coding his letters (2100 years ago) and the list goes on, so when did we become absent of common sense? 

So when you give premise to “a British man who died with Covid-19 after refusing to be vaccinated, made – according to his family – a “terrible mistake” of being influenced by online anti-vaccine content.” As well as “Florida taxi driver Brian Lee Hitchens lost his wife to Covid-19 after they were influenced by Facebook content that claimed the pandemic is a hoax” consider that Dr. Faucci has been blowing the horn of vaccination for the longest time, a real scientist, so when were you stupid enough to listen to a nobody on Facebook, whilst a doctor who

  • Joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a clinical associate in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’s (NIAID) Laboratory of Clinical Investigation (LCI).
  • He became head of the LCI’s Clinical Physiology Section in 1974 
  • In 1980 was appointed chief of the NIAID’s Laboratory of Immunoregulation. 
  • In 1984, he became director of the NIAID, a position he still holds.
  • Fauci has been offered the position of director of the NIH several times, but has declined each time.
  • Fauci has been at the forefront of U.S. efforts to contend with viral diseases like HIV/AIDS, SARS, the Swine flu, MERS, Ebola, and COVID-19. 
  • He played a significant role in the early 2000s in creating the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)
  • Driving development of biodefense drugs and vaccines following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

is largely ignored and debunked by nobodies, in some cases even by presidential nobodies. At what point does a nobody on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube have anywhere near these qualifications? So, we do not care if you kill yourself in one of the most stupid ways imaginable, however I think you need to stop whining like little chihuahua’s and just die so we can take your job and your house. The central point is vetting information and that is on us. Yes, I have been duped once or twice, but it needs to be a real clever person to dupe me (yes, it can still be done). So when I see another this will make you rich, or I can offer this house to you so cheap, I know it is a scam. You see people give good deals to friends and people they really know, if it is someone else then no one wants it, or it is a scam, scammers win by making you believe that you won the lottery even when you never bought a ticket.

My issue with the BBC article is that there is a much larger stage and the first step to that stage is the law, we all know it, but we all ignore it. Just like ‘Tax the rich’ (tax laws), we seem to fall for it every time and it saddens me. In the 70’s I was a youngling (almost a youngling) and I was trying to become smarter and around me were people that were smart (some only made that claim), now it seems that no one takes the trouble to investigate, the answers are on social media and there every minute another sucker is born. Yet in all this, how do the fact checkers look at government propaganda? How do they see through media filters that intentionally keep you in the dark? As the barrier between news organisations and filtered information bringers goes ever thinner, fact checking goes out the window. So let’s not blame YouTube for all this, perhaps more could be done, I will never deny that, but what an be done when people are unwilling to test the setting against the law, that first step? And in all this I reckon that TikTok and Facebook also bare some of the blame, but they are not mentioned here are they?

So when we see the article end with “It cannot be left to internet companies to decide how to tackle bad information or choose how transparent to be about it” we see an uncomfortable statement that is not wrong, but who will do this? Oh, and to be clear who will check TikTok? And how will these be checked? More important, what will we do about the disinformation up-loaders? That too deserves attention, if we are not willing to prosecute them and when we are unable to prosecute them, how can any of this be with YouTube/Google?

If you want to stop disinformation, you need to factcheck yourself, that has been a truth for millennia and we forget that part of the equation a little too often, do we not?

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January 12, 2022 · 08:20

The next challenge

Gaming IP is always a challenge. There is the iterative challenge of getting a sequel or a remaster into play. Even as the innovative charge does not hold up for too long, a great game remastered can fill the coffers of a software house rather fast and nicely. We have seen it in the past, we could optionally see it when someone decides to take SEGA Dreamcast IP to a new setting. I personally think that both Fur Fighters and Wacky Races are undervalued and cast aside. Fur Fighters has its own challenge and graphically on the Dreamcast it would be able to hold itself up against most of the IP we see today. It had the quirks that made us wonder what else would be possible, and that is a good thing.

There there was the Hanna Barbera classic Wacky Races. It was a race game that held up against Mario Kart and it was unique, a setting where the racers all had special abilities and overall each racer was gifted with all kinds of options, it was when the game was done against one another when it truly started to shine. There are of course more, but a lot of them were done in new ways and with new options. Yet these two were forgotten and in the age of play that is a shame.

When we look at the innovation station, the setting becomes oblique, there is a lack of clarity, in almost everyone and I am no exception. You see, we look at the games that exist and how we might do better or how we might change the way we play and that is hard, it really is, I do not deny it. I created several pieces of IP, yet I am also gifted with the weakness of looking to those who did make amazing games. I believe that is a problem, not a big one, but one none the less. I tend to look at the age that stands between the CBM-64 and the CBM Amiga (Including Atari ST). That era gave us so many games and so many could be upgraded and improved upon. Not  because the makers failed, they did not. But what is possible in 2022 was not an option in 1986, moreover there is every chance that the makers never considered it in those days. In this David Braben might have been one of the few to move Elite (1985) into Elite Dangerous (2014), it was great then and it became overwhelmingly amazing in 2014. It is one of the few games that made a multi generation leap and the best part is that there are dozens of games that could have that ability. I wrote about it in the past. The 1983 EA game ‘Murder on the Zinderneuf’ could be the next thing. In this that it could be revamped, set to a larger stage and it gave me the idea to set the streamers (Google Stadia and Amazon Luna) to a new set of achievements one that could transfer into other games. Setting a new premise towards gaming and optionally trying new games. Yet that does not make it innovative. I believe my generation RPG, see previous story ‘Recap to the intro’ on September 25th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/09/25/recap-to-the-intro/) for details. The question becomes how many original new parts are required to move from iterative to innovative? I actually do not know. An RPG is not like other RPG’s and I avoided to copy the settings that Bethesda had, and I added options that Ubisoft ignored in the Assassins Creed. Sucks to be them! I ended up with more than 1 IP and a setting where Amazon could grow its population by 50,000,000 (not a typo). All settings that Microsoft just overlooked and ignored. The strongest console in the world? My ass! A ship is only as good as its captain and their board of directors are pushing ideas for self preservation whilst they do not understand what gamers want and need, as such they tend to lose battle after battle and it was Nintendo (the weakest console) that overtook them in less than half the time Microsoft had to grow its population. 

Yet the station remains valid. If we need more gamers, the need for innovation is adamant. Yes, we ca add iterative new games and that keeps the interest going for a little whilst, but it is long term games that a console need to gain real traction with consumers and that is why innovation remains key. Innovation is the next thing that drives hardware sales and that is what Ubisoft forgot about long before their 11th hour was up. And now that we see partnerships and all kinds of marketing messages (all whilst they lost another creative director), we can see that players like Ubisoft is trying to make their life last a little longer, all whilst the gamers know and see that their game is done. My prediction given last year was a lot more on the nose than most expected it to be and it matters. There is every chance that the headlines of Ubisoft that left become the new indie designers we hoped for and in this both Google and Amazon have a need to set that directive to their systems as fast as they can.

Time is running out and when gamers look around for a good game, it would be really nice if they are ready to support those gamers. Sony is ready, yet as a gamer I feel that a good gaming environment requires more than one platform and Microsoft is no longer a contender, so who will be the number two? Nintendo? Will the the people at Google and Amazon take this console war serious? We will let them decide.

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January 7, 2022 · 00:39

Intentional Procrastination

All whilst my back is killing me, I decided to write a little more (sleep is going bye bye). You see, there was an article plaguing my mind on TV’s that would enable taste by licking the display. I honestly cannot tell if that is wishful thinking, an April fools joke or real. If it is real, I wonder how long it will take for the adult entertainment industry to catch on and we see advertisements like ‘Does He/She really taste like Chicken? Find out!’ So how long until 1,546,768,114 teenagers of both genders will have a few of those movies hiding with some of their other ‘treasured’ possessions?

It then dawned on me that there is a side setting that I had forgotten initially about. Perhaps you have too. When I was young I was in the Netherlands and they had something called ‘snoep papier’ (candy paper), it was paper and you could actually eat this paper. So why not add something like an inkjet paper, but instead of colours, it will print tastes. Cherrie, Chocolate, Banana, Orange and so on. But not a normal inkjet, but one of those older plot printers, with up to 16 tastes. You can print a message that can be devoured, you can print advertisements and the people will get a taste of what you have. I am a little surprised that I have never seen something like that. Did I miss it? 

Now we seem to hold on to the pastry tastes as they tend to be the most outspoken tastes, but there is nothing stopping a player like Coca Cola to push forward their needs. Would there be a market? I reckon there is and with covid lingering on for another year at least, marketing departments will have to make do with what they can and novelty does tend to bring in the bacon.  Yet that could be merely my shortsighted view on the matter. And even as we take notice of 3D food printers, there is a larger need to print something that can be laced in an envelope, as well as the small fact that it might be (for now) a whole lot cheaper than 3D food printing. 

So whilst we take notice of any idea, we tend to tinker with these ideas to see if it fits the need WE have and that is fine. But so far I see people trying the newest ideas and they are forgetting to look behind them, that is where I found all kinds of ideas that did not fit then, but now those ideas that were rejected could actually bring about a new era. It is how I got the idea of printable displays (no joke). If is founded on an idea from around 1988 and people forgot to look there because there was new technology. Yet the old ideas can be rewrapped in all kind of ways, in some cases even in new innovative idea’s. So is it intentional procrastination, or is it the foundation of new and innovative intellectual property? I will let you decide, and consider looking behind you, there is all all kinds of stuff there that the wielders call junk because it is 15-30 years old, but it could be a lot more, reinventing the wheel is nice, yet reengineering a wheel tends to be more productive, more feasible and more profitable.

Have fun!

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January 6, 2022 · 17:48

The Community Nexus

This is not the first time I get here, but it is not a repetition either. Some things struck me and I reckon it is time for Sony, Google (Stadia) and Amazon (Luna) to wake up. To be honest, when I saw the earliest presentations by Sony I reckoned that they would be the first to take social networking to a new level, but no. I do not know whether they wanted Facebook to chip in, but after all the settings we saw pass by our screens, the setting is changing that either they start thinking things through, or they will be surpassed by others and it will cost them. Not unlike the Cocoon Network, it needs to have limitations, it needs to be advertisement free and it needs to service the gamers. Anything different might be seen as treason by these gamers and that would be disastrous. In this the idea that mimics Google Plus the most is the most appealing, yet it is not set in stone.

They need to consider a few things. Copy/Paste should be disabled, so that something stated on that cluster stays on that cluster (there will always be workarounds), but that is not the goal. You see the A-social network (Facebook) is full of flamers, trolls and shit stirrers and these networks can do without those. It needs to be clusters where gamers INVITE other gamers, and until the invitation is accepted no one has access. A person can only see other conversations in that cluster, they can copy what THEY added to other clusters, but it is cluster based. Then there are ‘commercial’ clusters. People who keep track of the game-makers like Microsoft, Ubisoft (if it still exists by them), Bethesda and so on. People want to keep track of their favourite games and game makers. People can add achievements and so on, but there needs to be a filter where we only see the achievements by a person that we also have. There should be more, but it needs to be a push station, if we include other means of social networking. It is the one flaw that is still not dealt with and no one has decent option. I reckon that Amazon has the greatest need, so that they can grow faster, but Google should not be sitting on their hands, not on this one. The visibility and growth of a console is versatility and Google dropped the ball twice already. In the first they decided not to produce games, it is not a real failing, but it is a weakness and therefor a threat. Then they let Amazon get close, in a field where they should have had a superior setting they ended up merely on par with Amazon, it still strikes me as odd. And in all this I do not care what Microsoft does, I simply do not trust them. 

And when we think about it, a console with community clusters leading to a nexus or a collection of nexuses was simply the next step and when Facebook screwed themselves over with Cambridge Analytica the others should have made a larger effort, as such Sony dropped the ball with the PS4Pro and the others are till not there, they need to because then Facebook launches Meta all over the place it will be too late for the other players to start and sitting on ones hands in a $200,000,000,000 market is folly even in the most conservative setting. In this Amazon clearly has advantages, but we should not rule out Sony. They need to do something and so far there is no indication that they are getting ready, making their advantage shrink, not by too much, yet any lagging lead is a win for the number 2 through number 5 consoles. That has always been the case and now will be no different.

That station is on the roll, and I reckon that the lack of that choice will hurt the players not ready in 2024. And when we see the carefully phrased denials, as well as the cautiously stated ‘We are working on it’ will be seen by gamers as a negative side in all this, do not take my word, merely watch how the gamers will ask in flammable ways why they were ignored (yet again). I cannot stress this enough. It is time for the consoles and streaming systems to consider what gamers need and where gamers would like to be. In this Twitter and Facebook might be nice, but the people are more and more weary of both of them and that is not a good place to set your console.

We all want to talk about our games and our achievements, but so far the people trying to flame what we do is running into the thousands, and that is causing a larger stage of doubt with gamers. Giving them a safe space is becoming increasingly essential. I see all over Facebook pages where a 17 year old proudly brags what he got done in FIFA and I see dozen hammer that person seconds later. Wouldn’t it be great if that person had a cluster with school and gaming friends and that person could share it just to them? That is the station for an invitation clusters only, and that need is fast and vastly growing, so why Sony never picked up that ball is a little beyond me. The streamers will not have that luxury, that much is clear to me.

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January 5, 2022 · 00:21

Cyber Security Impressions

Here I am, a little after 23:00. I am in a decent level of agony as I hurt my back and the painkillers do not work, at least it is having no effect. In this I also have been forgoing sleep since Saturday (pain levels tend to do just that). Yet I just had an idea. I just figured out another usage for my 5G devices. A setting to limit and downsize credit card fraud and identity theft. I saw some of the damage a few days ago and it kept it in the back of my head. 

Now, let’s take a little detour to anti viral solutions about two decades ago. In those days one solution was to create thumbprints of every file, the checkmarks would give an indication that a file was optionally infected. 

Now let’s take a step to tomorrow. Most people are wage slaves. Often working from 8am to 8pm, and their routine changes to the smallest degree. Now consider that you could create a thumbprint of your day, not in detail but to some degree. Now consider that the credit card thief would try to make a purchase somewhere in town, but the thumbprint of you will not match up. More important when you set up your daily station and upload that (encrypted) to your bank server your bank can check whether you were anywhere near the purchase. Consider that credit card fraud surpassed $24,000,000,000 in 2018 and it is only getting worse. Yes, you can wait for the bank to return your cash or you can be proactive and that is the station where the daily file is encrypted and it does not have specifics, merely connect points, yet those points will not fit the credit card thief and that is where we can stop him proactively. More important, it could also give banks clues on HOW and more important WHERE the credit card theft was done. Why did no one think of this earlier? Perhaps before 5G the system would be overly taxed. I do not know, I am merely  trying to see if this could be the optional solution and my hardware is already on station to make a mark, yet I am not the only one. Mobile phones could easily have a similar function, so there are alternatives and that is good. This is an issue we should all try to solve, not to simply see if it is a moneymaker. On the other hand preventing loss is also a moneymaking solution, it makes money for banks and it stops YOU from losing money you might optionally not get back, or get back after a long delay. And as this solution gets better it would be near direct resolutions making the thief the loser as we all want it to be.

Now at first it will not be the perfect solution, yet as the people submit more and more thumbprints, deeper learning systems will be able to tell more rapidly and more quickly if the purchase was for real and done by the actual purchase. It could even set the stage where kids cannot go on a spending spree with mommy’s or daddy’s credit card. So far I can only see upsides and that is always nice. I am still trying to see if there are downsides, and perhaps I will find 1-2, but at present there are seemingly none. 

A simple (and painful) day and I found another way to stop credit card theft, what a lovely way to start Wednesday, which started 18 minutes ago.

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December 28, 2021 · 23:36

Is there tinsel in this town?

We seem to get rather fickle on what we see on the big screen and the small screen. We are pushed from event to event by marketing trying to create the new hype, from makers hoping for us to indulge in a new taste of Tinsel and we are letting it happen, we are giving in. We give in too often and we give in to readily. Yet the danger is that in that stream we lose sight of the good stuff, we lose sight of what could be awesome. 

I am not debating whether a series is good or not, it tends to be set to individual tastes, but marketing does not allow for individual taste, it requires clusters, because it is cheaper to tailor to a group. The problem is that it works too well. To give this a spin, lets look at data

In a normal setting we see 

Good ratings – 23
Average ratings – 37
Low ratings – 31
No ratings – 9 
Total – 100

Now consider that marketing sets the stage for people to only see the top 25 percent, in this setting we see that those with good ratings does not cover the 25%, so some over the average series drip in. But marketing hands to us that those with no rating do not count and now we get a different setting through what some call user missing values.

Good ratings – 23 (25%)
Average ratings – 37 (40%)
Low ratings – 31 (33%)
Total – 91
No ratings – 9 
End Total – 100

23 out of 91 is now 25% and as such the threshold is made and ALL the average series are disregarded by the marketing department as as such they fall from your view too. The truth is a little more complex than that, but the setting fits. The problem is that YOU did not vote, 100 people voted in this case. But is that not based on THEIR personal preferences? This is in part the problem with clusters and statistics. Statistics have their purpose, I believe in them, yet if we do not see the danger they pose we will be marginalised into the outliers we are so eager to avoid. 

To see what we might love, we need to see a lot more than we are given and the cluster marketeers are eager to avoid that setting, they represent THEIR client and what that client is bringing and it is now, in the era of Covid that some realise that we are given to shallow a choice, it is the setting of time and the setting of available time that made us look around and now that we see more we wonder what we are missing out on. I personally had reservations when the Name of the Rose was redone a a series, but when I found out it was an amazing journey I took it in. A series largely avoided by too many for all kinds of reasons, but who of you saw The name of the Rose with John Turturro, Rupert Everett, Damian Hardung, Stefano Fresi and others? Explortion is the one thing that tinseltown marketing fears, it disrupts their clusters and changes the way we see series. We are already changing this through Disney Plus, Netflix, Amazon Prime and others, the setting that we pay monthly and get all they offer is a setting that marketing is not completely ready for, but in the era of Covid the setting alters even more, now the entire field is seen and it worries the marketing departments in entertainment, we have too much free time and still that same monthly budget. These departments now fear the power of Churning, especially Netflix and Disney Plus are empowered by churners and the field will get larger. Soon there will be a new players that offers both for a nice price and that is when the field changes even more. Channel Plus and Foxtel faced that stage around 1999-2003 and now we see the first settings where Netflix and Disney Plus might face it soon enough too. In this, I expect that statistics will play a larger impact here. It is nice to see these two players throwing billions a year, but the numbers do not support that stage and a setting where they can work on a 60%-80% budget and share the members is preferred to the stage of losing them. There is still Apple, HBO and a few others. And this is their fear, they claim it is not, but the numbers are out there, because if the others unite the idea of getting 5-7 channels for one fee will overwhelm them and it will cost them over time a lot more, all whilst they still fight each other with new and more exciting IP, IP I equalled in a mere two months as I had some free time. 

As I see it the numbers are working for me and even when that population becomes a whole lot bigger, so will the outliers in the data. I reckon that we will see a first stage in 2023, when 5G becomes a much larger stage and if covid goes on the way it does a change in 2022 is not out of the question. 

You can wonder all you want, or you can wait to see what happens next. In this stage that will work in your favour. In September we were given “Netflix is expected to boost content spending on an amortised basis by a healthy 26% in 2021 to $13.6 billion — and the streamer’s budget could hit $18.9 billion by 2025, as it increasingly shifts the mix toward originals”, now consider that globally, Netflix had in Q3 2021 213,500,000 members. How long do you think this spending continues all whilst churners are now becoming a much larger stage for concern? At $10 a month (and not for the 4K option) we see a monthly stage that goes around $2B a month, so 6-7 months for the spending and we forgot about infrastructure, under those spendings Netflix has a near balanced stage, a stage that goes wrong they get more than one series wrong as a hit. And there is every chance that 2022 will get more people to the cinema, covid might have stopped us, yet we never forgot about the big screen Tom Holland showed that much with his $1B plus view on the new Spiderman and more is coming. Netflix and Disney Plus are in a dangerous stage. Disney might have reserves but when you spend well over $10,000,000,000 there will be hardship and when you add it all together we see that the numbers cannot continue as they are at present, I hope you see that too and when the clustering marketing efforts fall away, when the view digresses to the stage that becomes smaller as time is no longer a luxury we once had, the stage will take another turn, at that point we all wonder what comes next. We wonder what will happen, we all do and that is fine, but in that stage Netflix (Disney too) will need to alter the game they are playing at present. I see no other option for them the game they play now will prove to be too expensive for several players in that game.

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December 28, 2021 · 04:42

Card or Con? Friend or Foe?

Forbes got my attention, just as I was reconsidering part of something that happened a few months ago. It was the article https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/03/20/i-need-medication/ titled ‘I need medication!’ It reverberated in me as I took notice of Forbes (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/12/27/is-it-time-to-disrupt-your-call-center/)there I got served the quote that matters, it was “I recently received a letter from a major credit card issuer. To process my application, they needed some additional information and verification. The problem? I had not applied for a new credit card. The letter was valid, but the application was fraudulent. The letter instructed me to send the required information for verification or call a toll-free number, with no option to text or chat. I opted to call the toll-free number. This was truly a call center, not a contact center.” The setting where we have “Monday morning, I navigated the maze again and got into the hold queue where I was informed my hold time was one minute. Success! Two hours and twenty minutes later I hung up. I looked up the credit card fraud phone number for the provider and called them. Within moments, I was connected to an agent. Yes, she would be able to help me. Before I could speak, I was transferred to — you guessed it — the same number I had called previously.” Here we get a setting, a setting that takes hours, in that time all kinds of fraud could have been commenced. Of course there is all kinds of chances that Forbes was adding the spice of drama, but I think it is simpler than that, there is a failing in Fintech as a whole. It seems that it is about revenue and for the most they will not care about the people, no matter what claim they make. If there was a true customer service then there would be checks and balances, there would be more than “To process my application, they needed some additional information and verification.” I believe that this is not an American issue, it is a European, a British, and Australian, a Canadian and several other nations. A massive failing in Fintech and the policy makers and lawmakers are falling behind, no matter what the excuse, they are falling behind. 

We see some laces giving us numbers (they call it statistics).

  • In 2018, $24.26 Billion was lost due to payment card fraud worldwide
  • Identity theft makes up 14.8 percent of reported fraud
  • 69 percent of fraud starts with a consumer being contacted by telephone or email, such as overdue loans or prize scams

Those were the numbers, now we see: 

  • Instances of identity theft by credit card fraud increased by 44.6% from 271,927 in 2019 to 393,207 in 2020
  • Identity theft by new credit card accounts increased by 48% in 2020.
  • From 2019 to 2020, the number of identity theft reports went up by 113% and the number of reports of identity theft by credit cards increased by 44.6%.

This shows (to some degree) that the larger stage is Fintech and a much better system is required, a much larger check needs to be in place. The fact that a consumer got “they needed some additional information and verification” could be seen as evidence. Overall systems are designed as ‘customer friendly’ all whilst it is (as I personally see it) a system for automated credit allocation not allowing a person to take time to reconsider, a straight push for credit and spending sprees. What happens if credit cards are treated like the acquisition of a pet? To set the stage of a ‘cooling off period?’ Is it that weird to let the person going for the credit reconsider for 24 hours? 

In this day and age there is a larger concern, it is not merely that we see the passing of 5,419,538 people, a large amount of them might be facing all kinds of fraud and hardship and that passes on  to the next of kin who are already devastated. 

However, it is not all Fintech. Forbes also gives us “I received a phone call from another card issuer’s fraud department. Their question was simple: Did I apply for one of their cards? When I responded no, they immediately flagged it as fraud and advised me to check my credit reports for other suspicious activity. Their systems analysed the same data available to the first bank and flagged it as possible fraud.” So some are better than others, the question becomes, how can the system be improved? That is the real conundrum and the customer service part is essential in all this. Whether we look at a Friend of Foe solution, whether we have a connected bank or not. I reckon that there is a solution to implement blockchains that allow for a much more secure station, a setting that is not propagated. What if the block chain is in two parts? A part that only the consumer has, one part that the bank has, one can check the other, yet a new bank will not have that part, only the current bank has it, a setting that could limit the damage we see with 

  • Identity theft by new credit card accounts increased by 48% in 2020.

It is not a perfect setting (yet) but when we consider the part I wrote about in the earlier blog. “To make sense, I need to take you back to the 80’s. There was a fab in those days, radio’s had a sort of enhanced METAdata part, so when a song was playing, you saw the band and the title in your display. It is almost like someone took that idea and put it on steroids, I cannot think of another explanation, what is more, I have no idea what my brain was working out. It is like someone figured out to hide more than a FoF (Friend or Foe) message in the radios broadcasting, with some cypher that gave the relevant information to any visor it faced. Yup, quite the ride and it went on for some time in my dream, the arrows had numbers, but the numbers made no sense to me, but to the co-pilot they made a lot of sense. They were following along the path of a canal with several branches, and the arrows were pointing along the canals they were on, several (not all) pointing in some sort of flight guidance setting.” So what happens when block chain meta data points at the actual person, not the applicant. There might be a station where we see that the 48% increase dwindles down by a lot, optionally arresting a lot of fraudulent players in the process. This is not a given, it is a mere thought, but I am trying to consider a new approach, one that a lot of players are not making, I am not saying that they weren’t doing anything, because I cannot answer that question, yet as I see it a lot of issues are ignored due to ‘customer friendly’ issues, whilst it tends to benefit fraudulent behaviour a lot more. 

And it is essential, because in 5G this station will get a hell of a lot higher and the Law, Big Tech and Fintech are not ready, none of them seem to be. However, that is merely my take on the issue.

Enjoy the day.

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December 24, 2021 · 20:04

Google and the militant woman

I was underway to consider and learn about the Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon. I am till focussed on getting my 3.75% bonus from China and selling a heap of these to Saudi Arabia will seal the deal. I reckon that selling the goods amounting to $2,000,000,000 will seal my retirement deal, I will get a few additional services sold, but I am not greed driven. So whilst I was setting up the presentation on the versatility of the stealth systems, it was then that I saw the flaw in the Indian Indian Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa presentation on the Sukhoi Su-30MKI. I rechecked the files several times, someone there was tying the cat to the bacon! I reckon that unless the Chengdu was flying right in front of that Sukhoi, the Chengdu could never be seen, for me and my capitalistic nature, this is good. You see, Iran is all over those sexy Russian beasts and so they should; America and the UK will not do business with them, as such two remained and they chose Russia. Now the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will end up with the better racehorse of the sky and I should get the bonus of my desire. So it was around that moment when my memory took me back to 1987. I got exposed to Framework 2, it was an interesting and short lived introduction. I was already on board with Ashton Tate, dBase 3+ was revered by me and in the two years that followed I created database systems, container systems and I found out how people in Rotterdam were cooking the books. All with one program and it was running on an IPM PC XT. Two years later with the Nantucket Clipper compiler I went off to the races to a much larger degree and that is where my programming skills stayed. I only blame myself, there was too much infighting, to much politics on software decisions, who had the best friends, not who had the superior software and in that era Frameworks 2 was lost to the crowd, what had the potential to crush Lotus, set limits on Microsoft Office and a few other beasties was drowned in marketing disasters. 

This matters, you will catch on soon enough. It was then that my mind took a leap. You see Apple, Google, Amazon, Disney, HBO and a few others are on the fence. They are in a spending setting that goes nowhere. They think it is, they claim that others will solve it and they are ignoring the larger danger that is staring them straight in the face.

You see they all make the claim that Final Draft is the bees knees. I agree it is good, it really is but it is set to the singular writer, I had version 6 at some point, it is now at version 12, so improvements will have been made and the industry calls it the standard. But what decides that standard? Final Draft, the writer or the industry and its needs? 

There is the rub, when you see that they are all relying on larger series, all hoping to be the next game of thrones. In that era you need a better solution, a much better solution. You need something that has the abilities of Frameworks 2, a Microsoft successor (OneNote) and take it all to the next level. A system where the writer writes and can set the backstory to any person, any object and any event. You can then set the view to a moment and see where everyone and everything is. The power is to add to the writer, not limit the writer. So the writer can or his writing to set text segmentations. He can flag people, he can flag objects and he can flag places, and so on.

The story book now gets an upgrade, the stage of 3+ people keeping track of it all one system does so and when that system passes the industry standard, places like Netflix and Disney will jump at the chance, you see whomever has THIS advantage gets to shape the industry. It is the one who is the most efficient and it is the one that shows that savings are made, As long as the producer sees the magic moment of 189% profit being passed that is the one who wins, you can make more money, or limit expenses and in this world the one who limits the expenses has the clearer field to win that game, go look for yourself, the knowledge is out there. I am simply amazed that no one thought this through. Not the militant woman (Amazon) and not Google. 

Me? I do not care, this is not the place where my strengths are, but if it is you take this idea and make it the new industry standard. My Christmas present to you. So enjoy the idea or throw it aside if it is not for you, which could be fair enough as well. And it is now 19:41 (pure coincidence), so it is your early Christmas present for the year. 

Getting back to my (upcoming) bonus, I just realised that intelligence analyst Robert Gates copied to some degree the deception that Air Marshall B.S. Dhanoa started in 2018 by downplaying the significance of the Chengdu J-20 by questioning how stealthy it would be, they all forgot how stealthy it could become and by downplaying that part, they optionally squandered funds to keep equal. That made me realise that it is possible that the fuel tanks were upgraded, consider two hardpoints that are weapons or auxiliary tanks, now consider a new kind of hardpoint that can have both. A fully armed J-20 with an additional 12% range, a side none of the adversaries considered. I cannot prove this part, but it made sense, and the images I saw 2-3 years ago gave me unwittingly the idea, the shapes were off, this was a way to have both, not aerodynamically reasoned, but a tactical choice. A side ignored by all, oh I hear the sleigh-bells ringing for me too (I am allowed to delusional at this point), for me it is about to be Christmas too. 

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December 23, 2021 · 23:16

Getting a mute to lead the blind

Confused? Good! It has been going on for a little while, but Al Jazeera heads the setting of others with ‘Is the US crackdown on spyware firms just getting started?’, the article (at https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/12/22/is-the-us-crackdown-on-spyware-firms-just-getting-started) gives us “The Biden administration blacklisted Israeli spyware firm NSO in November, but experts say more needs to be done.” Well, that might b e nice, yet the absence of evidence means that they take to the streets with the stupid and flammable people. It becomes even worse with “a collaboration by Amnesty International and a coalition of media outlets – revealed that NSO’s software was sold to authoritarian governments that used it to spy on political leaders, journalists, executives and human rights activists, including people close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” As I personally see it, it was a collection of wannabe’s and fakes. They are that because evidence was not ever presented. And now the plot thickens, you think it does not? Well hold on, we are about to really up the throttle on this.

You see Bloomberg hands over the evidence I claimed all along. I wrote in several articles that if that list of 10,000 numbers was real the NSO Group would have a $400,000,000 piggy bank. But Bloomberg gives us ‘Pegasus Spyware Maker NSO Group Throws Cash at New Ventures to Survive’, where we are treated to “Israeli spyware firm NSO Group burned through most of its cash this year in a desperate bid to move past the scandal surrounding its phone-hacking tool Pegasus, according to a person with knowledge of the matter and private financial documents seen by Bloomberg News”, this could be seen as implied evidence that the money was never there, as such the list has to be (to a larger) part fake. Something I saw in less than 5 minutes, but all these wannabe essay writers You know, the one the Guardian has in Washington DC, as well as a wannabe essay writer at the United Nations with an outspoken hatred of Saudi Arabia. All going on flames and friends, but not a lot of evidence. Last Week at Wired we also get ‘Google Warns That NSO Hacking Is On Par With Elite Nation-State Spies’, but I will get back to that. You see the Bloomberg article (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-21/nso-group-burned-up-most-of-its-cash-to-shift-away-from-pegasus) also gives us “Two American funds have expressed interest in NSO’s Eclipse technology — which can detect, commandeer and land drones — and in its new big-data analytics platform, for which the company signed its first contract this quarter, the person said. Pegasus would either be shut down or brought under the same umbrella as the other businesses in a bet that U.S. ownership would improve its standing, according to the same person.” In this I personally think that these American Funds can go and get fucked (apologies for the language), you see if the NSO is on a blacklist, the Americans can go try and make it run on a kite. 

Although, there is every chance that China, Russia and optionally Saudi Arabia might want these technologies. So as we consider Wired giving us “The exploit mounts a zero-click, or interaction-less, attack, meaning that victims don’t need to click a link or grant a permission for the hack to move forward. Project Zero found that ForcedEntry used a series of shrewd tactics to target Apple’s iMessage platform, bypass protections the company added in recent years to make such attacks more difficult, and adroitly take over devices to install NSO’s flagship spyware implant Pegasus.” You see what Google (Apple too) isn’t telling you is that the transgression was possible to begin with. This is not some nerd in his mothers basement. This is the kind of person that can equal if not surpass both the NSA and GCHQ. More importantly both Google and Apple were not prepared, so just how many gaps are there in mobile phones? You want to complain about Huawei and their security dangers? Google and Apple are doing that all by themselves, just like Cisco did, but you probably missed those articles. Credit to Cisco of alerting everyone to this, but the media was eager to ignore it, much sexier to accuse Huawei without evidence.

So whilst the White House idiot gave the people a blacklisting, we get:  “NSO issued a statement at the time saying it was “dismayed” by the Biden administration’s decision and that its technologies “support US national security interests and policies by preventing terrorism and crime”” So now the parts are here, we get to my use of ‘White House Idiot’, fair enough! You see, as the finances show that members of the media have been lying (optionally by not vetting information). We also see that the members of the NSO Group might sell to anyone BUT the Americans. A stage that will cost America greatly, especially if China acquires this technology. So after they squandered weapons sales to Saudi Arabia (I am still hoping for my 3.75% bonus on sales to China), the setting is now that one of the most sophisticated pieces of intrusion software might end up where no one wanted it to go, it reminds me of the old saying regarding ‘A cornered cat’, and it serves the mother goose brigade as I personally see it and you can see it too, you merely need to look at the actual claims and the fact that we see words like ‘alleged’, we see ‘might be infected’ and we see no clear number system. No dashboard that gives optional validity to the claims by wannabe essay writers. 

You know what? I am slightly too angry. First the yanks go all out on Huawei whilst evidence was never presented, now we see that the 5G networks are AT BEST a mere 50% of what Saudi Arabia has and in case of the US it is a mere 1.4% of 1%, it is THAT slow. Now we see the same exercise and it will be anyones guess who ends up with the NSO group software. It will be up to the NSO group to decide, yet I feel strongly that it should never end up in American hands. A person should not be allowed to be THIS stupid and being given a slice of cake, if it does happen, it better be valued at several billions. If you are THIS stupid, you cannot be much of a software maker, so pay you will, optionally Google could buy it to make their hardware more secure. It is a stretch and it is a steep price, but it could mean that the Apple supremacy ends and that might be worth a bag of coins to Google. 

Yet the best moment was when I saw that the media nailed their own coffin (the finance bit), so whilst Wired and the Washington Post did the right thing, the others can take a long walk of a short pier as far as I see it. Oh yes, the Wired article was at https://www.wired.com/story/nso-group-forcedentry-pegasus-spyware-analysis/ 

One day until Christmas, I reckon it is that time of the year when we take a little more time to see what weapon systems are out for sale. I need a new hobby!

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December 19, 2021 · 13:25

See for creativity

It makes sense, it really does and it all started this morning when I was confronted with an article (at https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/search-engines-try-to-rival-google-by-offering-fewer-ads-more-privacy-1.6286925), the CBC is giving you all ‘Search engines try to rival Google by offering fewer ads, more privacy’, yes that is one approach, but that is the iterative approach, it comes from ‘What else can we do with this?’ And that leads nowhere, it will not lead to true innovation. True innovation is different, it goes where no one has gone before. To give you 5 examples lets take you on a little trip this morning.

F is for Facebook
Yes, there is Facebook muddying right along, having a new setting soon enough coming from Mark the Meta man Zuckerberg, it is a natural station forward and as others are all about dangers and all about warnings, the story behind them is fear, they never saw that this was coming (which is fair enough) and they are afraid to miss out twice in the digital environment. I for one saw the massive potential that TRUE Social Media could have. There is Cocoon (at https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/26/cocoons-social-app-for-close-friends-gets-vc-backing-to-chase-paths-dream/) which refers to a private social media, for your friends and family. They can take it a whole level further, but it seems that the people at Amazon (Luna) and Google (Stadia) are just not catching on. But now I do see wannabe’s making a chat and message version of that. Fair enough, yet the stage could grow further, will the see it?  I cannot tell and I actually do not care. It is up to them, but the stage of ‘There is more’ is missed by too many. Whether it is from a ‘How do I get rich fast?’ delimitation, whether they cannot see it, I do not care, not my battle, but options are missed all over the place.

A is for Apple
There is not too much that we can say on Apple. I can see a novel iteration that they are missing (Not the same as true innovation) but it is out there and it is larger than anyone thinks. I wrote about it almost a year ago and I will push the image below, perhaps someone will catch on, perhaps they will not. 

A station where an Apple/Nintendo partnership might appeal to both, but Apple does have what it takes to go it alone, in all this the setting is not what more is there, it becomes (to some degree) where else can we take this and there is a much larger station that is missed, because the wrong people are in charge. It reminds me of a thought I had for the longest time. You see Steve Jobs was clever, was bright yet was not the greatest innovative thinker, Steve Wozniak was but Steve Jobs (unlike some overpriced CEO’s) did recognise true innovation and that brought Apple where it is now. Still there is more that Apple can do, will it? I do not know.

A is for Amazon
Amazon is perhaps the largest power player with growth potential. I saw a potential to grown the Amazon Luna by 50,000,000 consoles (a conservative cautious number), I saw the potential of them becoming a 5G powerhouse. They have the potential to equal if not surpass Apple not merely because they started as an online book shop. They are set in a station where they could become the one powerhouse in Neom City (Saudi Arabia). Amazon has the ability to grow a lot more because they have an interesting balance of Manufacturing, retail and services. Microsoft wanted to focus and get rich fast, they there for hired people who were clueless on several matters. They lost the console world (from Sony and Nintendo) and optionally Amazon Luna if I have my way. To be honest, I fantasise on handing Phil Spencer (who is not to blame) a wooden spoon with engraved (in gold no less) Microsoft 2023. The year that Microsoft ended DEAD LAST in the console world. Their people will spin that, but consider the strongest, most powerful console in the world is behind Sony (PS5), Nintendo (Switch) already and when surpassed by Amazon (Luna), perhaps the people at Microsoft will start thinking instead of boasting Azure (blue) and their hardware when they were for the longest time clueless and there needs to be a penalty for that. Buying Bethesda for $8,500,000,000 might dull the pain and leave the people with the imagination that some good comes from it, yet the station of loss will increase and increase and If I have my way (and fantasy) Phil Spencer gets a wooden spoon in 2023 showing the board of directors at Microsoft that Amazon beat them there too. And that is before the people realise that the decision makers at plenty of places merely had a BS (not BU) presentation and that is when they realise that some made a bet on the wrong horse so whilst Amazon takes the lead, Microsoft becomes a ‘Horse no show’.

N is for Netflix
Netflix is the hardest case, they started being first, being true innovation, but over time they resorted to invest heavily in more and more scripts. Yet is that enough? Will that take the cake? It is hard to tell, you see we can all make claims, yet Netflix gave the people Love Hard (Nina Dobrev and Jimmy O. Yang) a hilarious approach to a Christmas movie and to be honest, it has been a while since I had that much fun watching a movie, then they also took the cake with Red Notice (Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds) a funny movie that is filled with fight scenes and clever situations. To be honest watching a youthful 98 pound young lady (Gal Gadot) slapping Deadpool and the Rock silly will never go out of style and that is merely the tip of an iceberg of fun and excitement. With these two titles alone Netflix rules 2021. I am not judging of making claims against Apple+, Disney+ or Amazon Prime. It is how things go at times. But more is needed and there we see that the Netflix IP division needs to diversify. I for one saw that a place like Netflix could be a great place for the comic books of François Craenhals (de Koene Ridder). 

The intro from Comic books is one thing, yet the transfer as they get to the second book (Les Loups de Rougecogne) the stage could be set for a new legendary franchise. 

I read these comics when I was young, but these comic books can be read at almost every age and the larger stage is there where plenty could be spend on the production and not all on IP to get forward. The comic books have almost everything any successful series need to have and there is more out there. Will Netflix take a leap into the untrodden places? I cannot tell, I do not work there, but there is potential.

G is for Google
There is not a lot of criticism on Google, they have pushed innovation again and again and they are the party to show others how good it can get when you are the innovative player. They are also the one innovative player that a power player like Huawei fears. I reckon that Huawei has the one essential directive stamped in their minds. ‘Get there before Google’, and they are happy that American politicians are so stupid, those politicians are doing the work of delaying the stage of Google again and again, so there is every chance that Huawei will get to a few stages (not all stages) before Google gets there. Can they do more? That is hard to say, Google is too big, too many parties playing and there are larger settings. I believe that not developing software on the Google Stadia (by Google) is not the greatest idea. Relying on Ubisoft will bite and that is where Amazon has the inside track, but there is more in play, so my thoughts make sense but could be wrong for Google. Consoles is not where their strength is and the idea that is in the Apple part could equally apply to Google, but not as wide as Apple can hand it. And all this relies on a free hand to play, all whilst these players are committed to moves, moves that also needs to take Microsoft, IBM and Oracle into consideration. There is no way that me ( or most people) are in the know on all those elements and there is a stage that states that Google is too big. I said it but I do not totally believe it, I believe that Google is too widespread. Apple is too much hardware, Google is too many services and Amazon has seemingly a much better balance, making growth easier (for now). And in this Google needs to consider where Apple and Amazon are going so they can avoid some tug of war in the field that many occupy. It is a rather nasty stage and there is no clear answer.

So here is my view on the FAANG group and my response to the article that gives us “He bills Neeva as an ad-free, private search engine. Results won’t include advertisements, and the company says any information it does collect from users isn’t shared with third parties.” This is fair enough, but that is not the stage, the stage is: ‘What does the consumer need?’ The larger stage that too many avoid because it leads to elements that these players do not want to entertain at present. So you can either make claims that they (might) need it, or you can sail unsailed waters offering something entirely new that was never considered and the consumer suddenly realised that he or she never considered needing that (which I did a few times) and that is where TRUE innovation starts, the stage where a person states ‘That is so logical’ a stage that Microsoft had with releasing Windows 95, but it was forgotten soon thereafter. The idea is not to be complex, but to be simple and let the ship steer its course from there, and when it sails in the right direction without you interfering all the time, at that point you own the IP of an innovate game-changer.

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